POLITICO Playbook: Spotted at the president’s golf club

The president and first lady will travel to Miami on Monday where he will address the Venezuelan community at Florida International University. | Getty Images

DRIVING THE DAY

NEW … CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL XAVIER BECERRA is expected to file a lawsuit challenging PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S emergency declaration as soon as today, according to a source close to Becerra. More than a dozen states including New York, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Oregon, Colorado, Connecticut and Minnesota are expected to join in the lawsuit.

THE PALM BEACH SCENE … SPOTTED Sunday having dinner at the Trump International Golf Club: Ike and Laurie Perlmutter; Eric and Lara Trump; Chris Ruddy and Kimberly Reed, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S nominee for the Export-Import Bank; THE PRESIDENT, first lady, Barron and Melania’s parents; Mick Mulvaney and his wife; Sarah and Bryan Sanders. … TRUMP chatted with Ruddy and Democratic lobbyist Tom Quinn.

SPOTTED: Stephen Miller on JetBlue 2133 from DCA to Palm Beach. He had to check his bag. … Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) at Bluestone Lane in Foggy Bottom. … Don McGahn and John Kelly talking at the Mount Vernon Birthnight Supper and Ball Sunday evening. Pic

MAR-A-LAGO RAGING … @realDonaldTrump at 7:15 a.m.: “Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.....” …

TREASON! … at 7:29 a.m.: “....There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!”

WHAT THE PRESIDENT IS TALKING ABOUT -- “McCabe: 'I was fired because I opened a case against the president',” by Quint Forgey: “Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said he was ousted from the bureau in March 2018 because he opened two investigations into President Donald Trump 10 months earlier.

“‘I believe I was fired because I opened a case against the president of the United States,’ McCabe told host Scott Pelley during an interview on CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes’ that aired Sunday.” POLITICO…The full CBS interview

Good Monday morning, and happy Presidents Day. Our afternoon edition is taking the day off. The House and Senate are out of session this week.

“Mr. Axelrod said he had been sharing his own perspective, not speaking as an official Obama emissary. But his forecast matches what Mr. Obama has told friends and likely presidential candidates in private: that he does not see it as his role to settle the 2020 nomination, and prefers to let the primary unfold as a contest of ideas. Michelle Obama, the former first lady, also has no plans to endorse a candidate, a person familiar with her thinking said. …

“He has counseled more than a dozen declared or likely candidates on what he believes it will take to beat President Trump, holding private talks with leading contenders like Ms. Harris, Mr. Booker and Senator Elizabeth Warren; underdogs like Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind.; and prominent figures who remain undecided on the race, like Eric H. Holder, his former attorney general, and Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.” NYT

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-- AP’S WILL WEISSERT in El Paso: “Border wall could be tricky issue, especially for O’Rourke”: “As the 2020 campaign is joined, other top Democrats can oppose Trump’s call for more and larger walls as a straightforward wedge issue — something they say shows anti-immigrant feeling, intolerance and even racism.

“But O’Rourke’s record on border walls is complicated. Last March, he supported a spending package that other leading Democratic contenders opposed and included $1.6 billion for border wall construction in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Buried in that was $44.5 million for repairs of existing fencing elsewhere — including El Paso.

“O’Rourke later explained the vote as a compromise to win approval of another proposal he backed, expanding access to mental health care for military veterans who had received other-than-honorable discharges. But his action attracted criticism from people who know the border best. Scott Nicol, co-chairman of the Sierra Club’s Borderlands team, called it ‘very disappointing.’ ‘The things that he has said have been dead on,’ Nicol said. ‘The next step becomes what do you do.’” AP

-- AP’S JUANA SUMMERS: “‘Carer-feeder’: Gillibrand plays up motherhood in 2020 race”: “As she cranks up her presidential campaign, Gillibrand isn’t trying to hide her working-mom juggle -- she’s running on it. More than any other contender in a field crowded with women, the mom of two is using her dual roles of mother and candidate to pitch herself to Democratic voters.

“She opens her standard campaign speech vowing to ‘fight for your children as hard as I would fight for my own.’ She’s floated the idea of making an RV trip through Iowa this summer, to be able to prepare meals for her family while she travels to meet supporters. During her first week as a candidate, she baked cookies with a voter, dismissing any complexity in the symbolism. And on a recent Tuesday evening, she even invited a reporter into her Capitol Hill home for dinner with her family.” AP

THE LATEST ON NORTH CAROLINA -- “Election board to decide fate of disputed North Carolina congressional race,” by Laura Barrón-López: “North Carolina’s board of elections will dig into fraud allegations in the state’s disputed 9th Congressional District on Monday, kicking off hearings that could prompt a new election this year.

“The district has gone without a congressman this year after the board declined to certify the 2018 election results amid accusations that McCrae Dowless, an operative hired by Republican Mark Harris’ campaign consultants, organized an illegal scheme to collect and mark absentee ballots. Harris led Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes on election night, but both candidates spent the next three months in political limbo.” POLITICO

“Trump said Friday that Abe had personally given him ‘the most beautiful copy’ of a five-page nomination letter recommending him for the prize for opening talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and lowering tensions.

“But Abe wouldn’t confirm that Monday. ‘The Nobel Committee for the last 50 years has not disclosed who recommended and who was recommended. In line with this policy, I would like to refrain from giving a comment,’ Abe said in response to a question from an opposition lawmaker. Pushed again to confirm or deny the report, he added: ‘I am not saying it’s not true.’” WaPo

TRUMP’S MONDAY … At 3 p.m., THE PRESIDENT and first lady will travel to Miami. He will address the Venezuelan community at 4:25 p.m. at Florida International University’s Ocean Bank Convocation Center. At 5:45 p.m., the president and first lady will leave Miami for Washington. He’ll arrive at the White House at 8:15 p.m.

PLAYBOOK READS

THE INVESTIGATIONS … DARREN SAMUELSOHN: “Trump can’t run the Mueller playbook on New York feds”: “Even as speculation mounts that special counsel Robert Mueller might be winding down his investigation, a parallel threat to President Donald Trump only seems to be growing within his own Justice Department: the Southern District of New York.

“Manhattan-based federal prosecutors can challenge Trump in ways Mueller can’t. They have jurisdiction over the president’s political operation and businesses — subjects that aren't protected by executive privilege, a tool Trump is considering invoking to block portions of Mueller's report.

“From a PR perspective, Trump has been unable to run the same playbook on SDNY that he's used to erode conservatives’ faith in Mueller, the former George W. Bush-appointed FBI director. Legal circles are also buzzing over whether SDNY might buck DOJ guidance and seek to indict a sitting president.” POLITICO

OOPS … AP’S ARON HELLER in Jerusalem: “Netanyahu’s Nazi remark prompts Poland to nix Israel summit”: “The crisis was sparked last week when Netanyahu told reporters that ‘Poles cooperated with the Nazis.’ The seemingly innocuous comment infuriated his Polish hosts, who reject suggestions that their country collaborated with Hitler.

“Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, announced Sunday that he would be skipping this week’s Visegrad summit, a gathering with fellow prime ministers from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz was supposed to replace him at Tuesday’s meeting in Jerusalem, the first time the gathering is being held outside of Europe.” AP

PLAYBOOKERS

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Keith Urbahn, founding partner and president at Javelin, is 35. What he’s been reading recently: “I just finished Nathaniel Philbrick’s ‘In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown,’ which is the first real study of the naval battle that made the final American victory of the Revolutionary War possible. The main reason the French fleet was there to support Washington’s troops at the right place and the right time in the Chesapeake was because the French wanted to escape the Caribbean hurricanes that wrecked the fleet previous fall. … Philbrick is, I think, the best American historian alive today.” Playbook Plus Q&A

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About The Author : Anna Palmer

Anna Palmer is a senior Washington correspondent for POLITICO and co-author of POLITICO’s Playbook, the most indispensable morning newsletter for the biggest influencers in politics. Anna covers the world of Congress and politics, and has successfully chronicled the business of Washington insiders for years. Her stories take readers behind the scenes for the biggest fights in Washington as well as the 2016 election.

She is also the co-author of New York Times and national best seller, "The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress and the Future of Trump's America," which was published by Crown in 2019.

In addition to Playbook, Anna is also editorial director of Women Rule, a POLITICO platform that is dedicated to expanding leadership opportunities for women at all stages of their career.

Prior to becoming POLITICO’s senior Washington correspondent, she was the co-author of the daily newsletter, POLITICO Influence, considered a must-read on K Street. Anna previously covered House leadership and lobbying as a staff writer for Roll Call. She got her start in Washington journalism as a lobbying business reporter for the industry newsletter Influence. She has also worked at Legal Times, where she covered the intersection of money and politics for the legal and lobbying industry, first as a staff writer and then as an editor.

A native of North Dakota, Anna is a graduate of St. Olaf College, where she was executive editor of the weekly campus newspaper, the Manitou Messenger. She lives in Washington, D.C.

About The Author : Jake Sherman

Jake Sherman is a senior writer for POLITICO and co-author of POLITICO’s Playbook, the nation's leading political newsletter. He is also the co-author of New York Times and national best seller, "The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress and the Future of Trump's America," which was published by Crown in 2019. Jake is an NBC and MSNBC political contributor.

Since 2009, Jake has chronicled all of the major legislative battles on Capitol Hill, and has also traveled the country to cover the battle for control of Congress.

Jake is a Connecticut native, and a graduate of The George Washington University — where he edited The GW Hatchet — and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Jake lives in Washington with his wife Irene and his son, and listens to an unhealthy amount of Grateful Dead and Phish.

About The Author : Daniel Lippman

Daniel Lippman is a reporter for POLITICO and a co-author of POLITICO's Playbook, the most indispensable morning newsletter for the biggest influencers in politics.

Before joining POLITICO, he was a fellow covering environmental news for E&E Publishing and a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He has also interned for McClatchy Newspapers and Reuters. During a stint freelancing in 2013, he traveled to the Turkish-Syrian border to cover the impact of the Syrian civil war for The Huffington Post and CNN.com.

He graduated from The Hotchkiss School in 2008 and from The George Washington University in 2012. Daniel hails from the Berkshires in western Massachusetts and enjoys playing tennis, seeing movies and trying out new restaurants in his free time.